Ɛpsilon

From George King   28 September 1880

c/o Messrs Grindlay & Co | 55 Parliament St | London

28 Sept 1880.

Dear Sir,

Before leaving Calcutta for England last April, Mr John Scott (of whose premature death you may have heard) put up in spirits two curious specimens of imperfectly developed young pigs.1 These he took with him with the intention of giving them to you. Being in this country on a short holiday I went the other day to see the relative in whose house Mr Scott died & I there found the jar containing these specimens. I fear Mr Scott was too ill after his arrival in this country to write to you about them, but being anxious to carry out his intentions about them I have had them sent to you—2 The specimens will explain themselves. Probably what will interest you most about them is the fact that the sow that gave birth to these has given birth to many litters of the same kind.

His friends have made over Mr Scotts papers to me & if I find amongst them any notes about these pigs I shall send them to you.

Believe me to be | Yrs faithfully | George King

C. Darwin Esq

1
In 1879, John Scott was forced to return to Britain from India on two years’ sick leave after developing a spleen complaint. He died at his sister’s house at Garvald, East Lothian, on 11 June 1880 (ODNB). King was superintendent and Scott had been curator at the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta.
2
The specimens have not been found. CD had been sent specimens of imperfectly developed animals in response to his discussion of polydactylism and inheritance in Variation 2: 12–17; for an instance of a pig’s foot, see Correspondence vol. 25, letter to Otto Zacharias, 26 April 1877. CD also discussed semi-monstrous breeds of pigs in Variation 1: 75.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12729,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12729